Friday, 30 December 2011

This 3D epic action adventure is loosely based on Greek mythology. It is the familiar story of the struggle to prevent an ancient evil from being unleashed. Before humanity walked the face of the Earth, there was a war in the heavens. The winners became the gods of Mount Olympus, led by Jupiter. The vanquished, known as Titans, were put into an eternal sleep and buried deep inside Mount Tartarus. The brutal, bloodthirsty and power-hungry King Hyperion (played by Mickey Rourke) of Crete is searching for the Epirus Bow that would enable him to unleash the power of the sleeping Titans in order to vanquish both the gods of Olympus and humanity. To achieve this, he raids the Holy Temple in which the virgin Sybelline oracle, Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and her three companions reside. Being a Sybelline oracle, Phaedra is able to see into the soul and predict the future. After kidnapping her and her companions, Hyperion and his men head to the nearby village where Theseus (Henry Cavill), a stone mason, dwells with his mother. Theseus, being a bastard son, was mentored by an elderly man (John Hurt) whom we later discover to be a manifestation of Zeus (Luke Evans).Before the village can be evacuated, Hyperion’s men attack the village and kill most of the villagers, including Theseus’s mother. As he witnesses this, he vows to take vengeance.Meanwhile, on Olympus, Zeus tells the other gods not to interfere until the Titans are reawakened. Zeus has chosen Theseus to lead the battle against Hyperion. When Phaedra meets Theseus, she has a disturbing vision of his future that convinces her that only he can stop the destruction. With her help, Theseus assembles a small band of followers, embraces his destiny and sets off on a desperate battle for humanity’s future.

Thursday, 29 December 2011

When the film opens, we see Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner) acting wildly as most teenage boys are prone to do. For the opening scene we see him on the hood of his friend’s car as they head for a ‘let’s party as my parents are away.’ He awakens the next morning in the front yard and heads home without his pants and hung over. To teach him a lesson his father, Kevin (Jason Isaacs), spars with him. His mother, Mara (Maria Bello), disapproves.Though Nathan acts like the other boys, he feels different. He is also tormented by a recurring nightmare. To deal with this and to resolve his feeling of difference he is seeing a psychiatrist, Dr Geraldine Bennett (Sigourney Weaver).Nathan partners up with Karen (Lily Collins), his next door neighbour with whom he has a crush, to work on a school project on missing children. Upon surfing the internet they stumble upon a photo of a certain Stephen Price. When they apply age-progression software to the photo they find that the boy looks remarkably like him.They call the number on the website unaware that it was a front for a Serbian terrorist group. The commander of the group, Nikola Kozlow (Michael Nyqvist) deploys two agents to his home to pick him up. Nathan’s parents are murdered and the home destroyed. Nathan and Karen escape and attempt to call the police. And so begins Nathan’s (Steven) quest for the truth and a fight for life (his and those around him). Who can he trust?Taylor Lautner does not quite fit in the role as the main protagonist; as compared to Shea LaBeouf in “The Transformers”. The film’s action scenes and dialogue were clumsy and clichéd.

This 3D version, based on the Conan mythology created by Robert E. Howard, has little to do with the 1982 version starring Arnold Scwartzneggar. It stars Jason Momoa in the titular role.

Jason Momoa

The film opens with a narrative recounting how the legendary Acheronian necromancers ruled their empire with an overwhelming and brutal evil. They wielded power with the aid of a special mask that was created from the skulls of dead kings and empowered by the pure blood sacrifice of their daughters.

When the barbarian tribes were finally able, they rose up and defeated the sorcerers. They destroy the empire and break the mask into several pieces. Each tribe kept one piece in order to prevent the evil from rising once more. One of the tribes was the Cimmerians.Thousands of years later the Cimmerians are now led by Corin (Ron Perlman). He is a blacksmith and father of Conan. When Conan’s mother was about to give birth she was alongside her husband in battle. She died while giving birth, thus Conan was born in battle and would therefore be destined to become a warrior.When Conan reaches adolescence, his warrior tendencies begin to show. In a contest to prove that one is ready to be sent into battle, he wins out over the other older boys. Not long after, while Corin is showing Conan how to master the sword, Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), a vicious warlord, attacks the village seeking the last piece of the Mask of Acheron in order to revive his dead wife. Accused of being a sorceress, she was burned at the stake. He also has a burning desire to rule over all of Hyborea. After locating the final piece of the mask, he murders the whole village but leaves Conan as the only survivor. Conan vows to take vengeance on Khalar Zym.20 years later, Conan with the help of a friend, raids a slave camp and brings them to safety. He recognizes one of the soldiers that were with Zym when his village had been raided and destroyed. The soldier was chasing a common thief. With cunning, Conan forces the soldier to reveal that Zym is seeking a pure-blood descendant of the Acheronian sorcerers to unleash the power of the mask.Zym, along with his sorceress daughter Marique (Rose McGowen) attack a monastery.The head monk tells Tamara (Rachel Nichols) to flee back to her home village. As she flees, Zym’s men chase and capture her. Conan rescues her and together they proceed to eventually vanquish Zym and his daughter Marique.

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Matthew (Matt) King (George Clooney) is forced to re-examine his life when he is faces two major upheavals.

His wife, Elizabeth is lying comatose in a hospital bed, after a boat accident. Matt is a wealthy lawyer descended from Hawaiian royalty and white missionaries. He is the sole trustee of a family inheritance of 25 thousand acres of untouched land on the island of Kauai'. The trust expires in seven years and negotiations are ongoing to sell the land to a local developer, Don Hollitzer. He has frequent meetings with his cousins for their input regarding the transaction.

Meanwhile he is also dealing with the difficulties his two daughters are experiencing as they try to deal with their mother being in a coma. Ten-year-old Scottie uses foul language and this disturbs the other children in school. Seventeen-year-old Alex is drinking alcohol and is angry with her mother. When Matt tells Alex that Elizabeth will never awaken from her coma, she tells him that her mother was having an affair. When Matt confronts two of their friends, he learns that Elizabeth’s lover was Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard).

When Matt is on the island of Kauai’, he spots Brian going into a cottage owned by his cousin Hugo (Beau Bridges). Hugo tells him that Brian is actually Don Hollitzer’s brother-in-law.

A human drama with the right balance of humour and pathos touching on those events in our lives that cause us to re-evaluate all that we do. George Clooney’s exposed a level of vulnerability in his performance that was real.

Sunday, 18 December 2011

Stirring account of Omar Raddad’s (Sami Bouajila) who was falsely accused and sentenced for the brutal murder of his boss, 65-year-old Madame Ghislaine Marchal. She was a rich widow. He was her gardener. He spoke very little French. Her mutilated corpse (stabbed and beaten) was discovered near the door to her basement in her villa in an affluent suburb north of Cannes. Her time of death was determined to be June 23rd 1991. The primary evidence used against Omar was an inscription written in her own blood on the door that read “Omar m’a Tuer” which would roughly translate as “Omar has Kill Me”. He also had penchant for playing the slot machines so it was claimed that he had requested an advance, was refused and brutally killed Madame Marchal in anger.After his conviction in January 1994, humanist novelist Pierre-Emmanuel Vaugrenard (Denis Podalydès) decides to investigate the case and prove that Omar Raddad was innocent. He firmly believed that Omar was a victim of racism and the real killer had escaped justice.Strongly shows how racial prejudice can cloud the pursuit of justice. Quite often an innocent man will be incarcerated or executed (examples galore in the United States vis-à-vis the blacks. Omar Raddad had to spend 18 years in jail before he was declared innocent. The film also shows the fragility of life. Things can be going well then due to hidden agendas, political or judicial expediencies can turn a once tranquil life into a living hell.

Saturday, 17 December 2011

Ryan Gosling stars as a Los Angeles wheelman. By day he is a stuntman and by night he drives the getaway vehicle for armed robberies. He tells the thieves that they choose the time and place and that they have a five minute window to do the job. Whatever happens within the five minutes is his responsibility and he is theirs; before and after it is their responsibility. He is simply known as ‘The Driver.’ He is by nature a loner. He works for Shannon (Bryan Cranston) who gets him his jobs and also provides the getaway car. His next door neighbour is Irene (Carey Mulligan) who due to her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), being in jail has to raise her son Benicio (Kaden Leos) by herself. When Driver meets Irene, there is a bit of an attraction between them and they begin to hang out with each other. Takes too long for the action to kick in (almost one hour) but when it does...When Standard was in prison he needed to be protected. Now that he is out he needs to repay the protection money. The ones to whom he must repay, threaten his wife Irene and son Benicio. To protect them, Driver agrees to help Standard with a heist. He is assured that it would be a quick ‘in and out’. Yet, as often happens, things go wrong, and this time horribly. Standard is killed and now Driver, Irene and Benicio are at risk from a syndicate of deadly criminals, led by Nino (Ron Perlman) and Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), who want more than just the money returned. Bernie is Shannon’s backer. A bloody game of ‘cat and mouse’ ensues.

“Fright Night (2011)” is a 3D comedy horror. It is a remake of the 1985 Tom Holland film of the same name. Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell) has just moved into a suburban neighbourhood of Los Vegas, Nevada. He has bought the house next to Jane Brewster (Toni Collette) and her son Charlie (Anton Yelchin). When role call is held in Charlie’s class, it turns out that many of the students are missing. His former best friend, Ed Thompson (Christopher Charles Mintz-Plasse) suspects that Jerry is a vampire. Ed convinces Charlie to go with him to another friend’s home who has also gone missing. Charlie eventually gets fed up and leaves, telling Ed to grow up.

Heading home, Ed is confronted by a bully. He hides in an empty home. Jerry enters (he doesn’t need an invitation, its empty) and attacks Ed.

The next day when Charlie sees that Ed is not in class, he realises that Ed might have been right and feels guilt over what he said to him.He decides to sneak into Jerry house to investigate. He discovers a series of secret rooms where Jerry keeps his victims alive for awhile. Charlie manages to rescue one of the victims but when she gets outside to is incinerated by the sunlight.

Charlie tries to enlist magician and ‘self-proclaimed-vampire-killer’ Peter Vincent (David Tennant) for help in killing his vampiric next door neighbour. Unfortunately Peter Vincent doesn’t take Charlie seriously and kicks him out, leaving Charlie to face Jerry on his own.

Jerry comes to Charlie’s house to complain to his mother that Charlie broke into his house the day before. Charlie convinces his mother not to let him in. Jerry reasons “If there is no house, I don’t need an invitation” so he blows up the house by igniting the natural gas in the house. Jane, Charlie and his girlfriend Amy Peterson (Imogene Poots) barely escape and flee in their minivan. After a scuffle and a car crash, Jane ends up in the hospital.

Peter decides to join Charlie in his fight against Jerry and give him a special stake that will kill Jerry and turn his victims back into humans.

Colin Farrell plays the role of vampire with a lot of vigour and lends to a sense of terror in both the other characters and the audience. David Tennant (of Dr Who fame) and Christopher Charles-Plasse lend the film its comedic touch.

Saturday, 10 December 2011

This first feature film is a coming-of-age comedy. It centers on the antics and concerns of 15-year-old Oliver Tate (played with perfect credibility by Craig Roberts). Told in three chapters, sandwiched between a prologue and epilogue, Oliver has two basic objectives: to save his parents’ marriage and to lose his virginity to his first love, Jordana Bevan (Yasmine Paige).Prologue:Oliver’s imagination and his perception of himself are revealed; despite the frequent teasing he receives from his classmates. This is particularly drawn out when he recounts his dreams of how his classmates and even the world would react if he passed away.Chapter 1 “Jordana”: He becomes Jordana’s boyfriend.Chapter 2 “Graham Purvis”: Oliver’s mother’s ex-boyfriend Graham Purvis moves in next door. Oliver suspects his mother is having an affair with him.Chapter 3 “Show Down”: Oliver’s world is crumbling. His mother did have a tryst with Graham. His relationship with Jordana is over due to a social misjudgement on Oliver’s part.Epilogue: Oliver wonders whether all this would matter when he is 38.The humour was low-key and nonchalant. Unlike most other films of this genre, “Submarine” deals with the subject at hand with a sense of maturity, integrity and imagination.

Friday, 9 December 2011

This epic and important film documents the obsessive efforts by one man to save a whole generation of Russian and Central Asian artists from being lost. Igor Savitsky (1915-1984) collected and rescued over 40,000 pieces of art, mainly avant-garde Russian, and places them in a museum in the desert city of Nukus the capital of Karakalpakstan in northern Uzbekistan. Savitsky also collected traditional Karakalpak items of folklore; items of antiquity that would otherwise have been lost forever.Even though Savitsky (his memoirs voiced by Ben Kingsley) was often penniless, he was still able to procure funds from the very authorities that had banned the art. As is often the case, the best place to hide something is in open sight. The watchful eyes of the KGB were definitely not on Nukus.Today the collection is still under threat from many sources. It is a lucrative target for Islamic fundamentalists, corrupt businessmen and art profiteers, and engenders the question “On whose shoulder lays the responsibility of preservation?” This thrilling and educational film should induce all who see it and especially those who know the value of art to be eternally grateful.

Thursday, 8 December 2011

The highly acclaimed show Rain by Cirque-Éloize, returned to Montreal December 7th 2011 for its final run in the Ludger Duvernay Hall of the Monument National (1182 Boulevard St Laurent – between Rene Lévesque and Ste Catherine). Ticket prices range from 46.62 to 77.38 dollars.

Monday, 5 December 2011

Political farce about a group of unilingual Anglophones (mainly Canadians plus one from New York) going to a remote village in Northern Quebec for a two week French immersion course. The name of the village is ‘St-Isidore-du-Cœur-de-Jésus.’ The village is a perfect place for total French immersion as its demographics show that 99% of the population is ‘pure laine’ Quebecois – unilingual and fervently nationalistic. All save for one is a Tremblay.The film failed to live up to its potential of being a very funny (it is similar in its concept to Gabrielle Nadeau’s short film entitled “Quebec, Quebec.”) This was due to a lack of coherence in the script, editing and performances. The film also suffered from too many subplots. It would have worked better as a weekly television sitcom that could have been broadcast on both the English (CBC) and French (Radio Canada) networks.

A program of German Cantatas, led by artistic director organist and harpsichordist Geneviève Soly, to celebrate the traditional Christian season of Advent in anticipation of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with guest soloists Adrian Butterfield on violin (second of two concerts – click on link below for article on Les Boréades concert of November 24th), Natalie Michaud (co-director) and Vincent Lauzer on recorders, and soprano Marie Magistry. The concert was preceded by a 45 minute dissertation on the German cantata.Geneviève Soly was the speaker.

Featuring not only the most well-known, those of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the concert also featured cantatas by lesser known composers: Wilhelm Friedrich Zachow (1663-1712; mainly renowned as being Handel’s master), Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) and Johann Theodor Römhildt (1684-1756). For details on German composers go to: (the listing is in chronological order according to year of birth)

Baroque at its Best with Butterfield in ‘Les Idées Heureuses’ Choral Concert

When Adrian Butterfield puts his bow to string, you know you are in for a treat. As the featured violinist in Geneviève’s Soly’s ‘Les Idées Heureuses’ latest November 27th concert in Montreal, he beautifully brought to musical life the program’s German religious music whose lyrics were sonorously highlighted through the fine soprano voice of Marie Magistry in the all Baroque German choral program.The performance illustrated Mr. Butterfield’s exceptional ability to tie together taut rapid tempos and various rhythms inside complex contrapuntal melody lines. Effortlessly yet audaciously, he expertly united organ, recorder, violist, cello and double bass into the celebratory liturgy the audience was privy to. His passion for Baroque music poignantly resonated throughout the new neoclassical ecclesiastical hall while magical light wafted through the stunning antique stained glass windows cocooning us all from on high. Indeed, the beautiful serenity of the Bourgie Concert Hall of the Museum of Fine Arts provided architectural inspiration that visually harmonized with the glorious music we heard that afternoon. Choral works by Bach, Zachow, Graupner and Römhildt emanated appropriate, joy, solemnity and mystery. Clearly, every lyric was enlivened by each member’s masterful execution of string ensemble playing - not surprising, considering, these performers are the pick of the crop when it comes to early music.Outstanding was the recorder playing of Natalie Michaud who also happens to be co-artistic director of the Baroque Music Society Les Idées Heureuses - along with founder Geneviève Soly. Michaud was perfectly paired with fellow recorder wiz, Vincent Lauzer, and as the duo dashed off in dazzling manner Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no 4, listeners were spellbound. For the second movement, they retired to the wings – remaining unseen. This vanishing act was most effective in softening their sonorous haunting replies to the strings who took center stage. Of course, one can’t review this concert without mentioning the force behind it all, Genevieve Soly.

Her passion for the organ was most obvious during a pre-concert lecture on German Baroque Choral Music wherein she ran back and forth from organ to lectern in order to demonstrate some compositional structures in each piece that would be heard in the ensuing performance. During her solo performance of Graupner’s Cantata I found she employed rubato in parts that did not necessitate such a romantic ploy; this was done when a new line of melody was introduced in the organ music. It threw off tempo and created an unneeded slowness in the piece that was somewhat unwelcome. Still, Ms. Soly is astoundingly brilliant in her playing ease, and clearly, she was a key player in contributing an exquisite polished quality to the entire concert experience. Her harpsichord playing perfectly anchored the other performers in the Brandenburg concerto. She is the queen of the Baroque music scene in Quebec, and has garnered countless prestigious awards for her brilliance. In closing, it must be said that although Mary Magistry got off to a weak vocal start in the first choral piece by Bach, she immediately redeemed herself, taking us to heights of bliss with her pure tone, injecting each song with just the right amount of vocal reverence and feeling.

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Beyond the Dream: Epic Solitude - Nancy's collection of Poetry & short stories. Contact hovecreekproductions@gmail.com or Click on image to read article. Here is the link to Martin Barry's article: http://martincbarry.weebly.com. Book is also available on Amazon Kindle

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Nancy Snipper is also an accomplished singer/songwriter – banjo player and classical pianist. Her three CDs have garnered much media praise along with her performances (Canada, Mexico, Cuba). Her voice is astoundingly beautiful – velvety in her blues numbers, sensual and sizzling in her folk, rock and country compositions. Now you can own one of her CDs. For enquiries about owning her CDs and/or booking performances contact her at this email: hovecreekproductions@gmail.com. Her CDs help raise money for cancer research.

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Collaborators / Collaborateurs:

Sylvain Richard

Nancy Snipper

Note / Nota:

July 10, 2016:The beginning of a new and exciting chapter! Nancy Snipper's (a.k.a S.N.) first posting on her own blog: http://sntravelandartswithoutborders.blogspot.ca/**********************************************To see all articles on a specific topic, scroll down to LABELS and click on desired LABEL. Full articles will appear one after the other that pertain to that label.Keep scrolling down to view more articles, and at end of page, click on OLDER POSTS to read more.Enjoy!